


Songs Unsung

by saltandbyrne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s03e11 Mystery Spot, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Pining, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandbyrne/pseuds/saltandbyrne
Summary: If he’s lucky he gets ten breaths.He doesn’t think to count the first few times.  The blast of a shotgun, a speeding car.  Sam just holds his brother and knows that this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.





	Songs Unsung

**Author's Note:**

  * For [millygal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/millygal/gifts).



> My spn-j2-xmas fic for millygal! I hope you like it. I went with some of your likes and got inspired to write Mystery Spot fic.
> 
> Major character death warning is for Mystery Spot style Dean death.
> 
> Title is from Heat of the Moment. I had to.

If he’s lucky he gets ten breaths.

He doesn’t think to count the first few times.  The blast of a shotgun, a speeding car.  Sam just holds his brother and knows that this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

~

It hurts each time.

Dean wears his death sentence around his neck like it weighs nothing, but his face when he realizes he’s dying betrays him.  Dean doesn’t want to go.

It’s something around the tenth time that Sam feels it.  He’s holding Dean’s bleeding head, rocking back and forth, flooded with the sick red of horror and dread and a slick, hateful trickle of relief.  He’ll wake up.  They’ll wake up.

Dean gurgles his last wet breath and Sam entertains the fleeting, death-sentence thought that will eat him alive ten-fold before he escapes this hell.

_ I could kiss you right now. _

Regret.  Sam’s last inhale passes his lips thick with humid night air and the stunning, aching absence of Dean against them.

Getting shot doesn’t hurt any less when you’re staring down the barrel.

~

Some days he plays it dumb.  It’s hard to fake and Dean always knows something’s up but he tries. 

Dean’s easy to distract.  Desperation has made a fluent liar out of Sam.  He tells Dean they won Ozzfest tickets on Tuesday 67.  On Tuesday 79 it’s tickets for the Cowboys, and Dean’s still yapping about it when he trips on that damn dog’s leash and drives his nose bone into his brain.

The long days can be the worst.  Dean makes it all the way to bed one night, with his boots tucked under the foot of the bed and his shirt folded neatly on the dresser.  Dean’s always neat when he thinks no one’s watching. 

“Will you quit staring at me, Sammy, you’re giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

Sam perches on the edge of his bed, tugging aimlessly at the hem of the same hateful grey tshirt he starts every day in.

“See something you like?”

Dean tries to jiggle his pecs but it just looks like he’s having a mild seizure.  Sam was always better at that trick.

That Tuesday hurts extra. Sam succumbs to a flicker of hope that stops him from saying, “Yes.”

Sam gets six breaths between Dean sneezing and the puzzled look on Dean’s face as one of his eyes blooms red.

~

Dean’s got toothpaste in his mouth the first time Sam kisses him.

It’s three Tuesdays past sneeze-aneurysm, two past Dean getting electrocuted when he cranks up the Asia, and one past, “You can tell if it’s real gold by biting it, Sammy.”

He’s watched Dean do this a lifetime plus 63 days.

It turns out it’s the mundane things that make Sam ache the worst.  He’ll stare at Dean compulsively stirring his coffee, the way he taps his spoon three times, the little pre-sip smile he grants all diner’s no matter how shitty their coffee actually is.  In the hollowed out moments between the alarm and the fait accompli of Dean’s death, Sam finds himself rarely thinking of the countless grand acts of heroism he’s witnessed from his brother.  It’s the way Dean goes “Ah” like a bad Listerine commercial after he spits out his toothpaste that wrenches Sam’s disgusting courage to the surface.

~

Ironically, the bed is comfortable.

It’s lost on Sam as he lingers in the warmth of sleep.  His fingers twisted in his shirt, he presses his lips together, a nervous habit Dean always teases him for.

He’s always known Dean is beautiful.  He knew it before the gentle teasing and heavy-handed flirtation of half the women they met.  He knew it before Dad started giving a certain type of trucker his meanest eye in the lizard lot bathroom stalls. 

Beauty is a feeling.  Sam never realized that he feels it every day when Dean wakes up in the bed next to his.

~

Dean’s in the shower.

Yesterday Dean had left his pig n’ a poke untouched after “How did a bee get in here?”  His face had swelled up and turned a mottled purple.  Sam had wondered, between breath four and five, if it’s the same color his cock turns when he’s hard.

There’s a freedom in the endless chasm of his Tuesdays.  This is hell.  It will never end.  In the absence of all hope Sam has finally lost the one thing that’s tortured him since puberty – fear.  Fear that he’s sick, sick in the worst, human way, worse than the monsters he was raised to kill.  Fear that Dad’ll see or Dean will know or Jess will sense that there’s another face hovering behind hers in the dark. 

He watches Dean die every day.  There is nothing left to be afraid of.

~

There are three good bars in town. 

Dean dies in all of them.  Aspirated peanut, bar fight, and “Hey, Sammy, Jell-o body shots!” 

Some days he makes it long enough for Sam to get him drunk. 

“You’re in a good mood, little brother.”

Sam spends all their cash on good bourbon.  It’ll be there tomorrow and Dean’s huff when he downs it is one of the million little Dean-isms that make Sam’s fingers twitch.

Dean’s easy to bait.  There’s a petite brunette in the bar with all the blowfish lamps and tiki drinks.  She’s so Dean’s type it’s pathetically easy to get Dean to size her up.

Sam runs a hand through his own brown hair.

“She’s cute.”

She’s also here with someone.  Dean’s smile for her date is just as charming.

Three drinks becomes four becomes five becomes “Another bottle for my brother!” and Dean’s telling him about the best sex he’s ever had.

Sam’s always been a good listener.  He grew up on Dean’s stories.  Other kids grew up on Golden Books and Dr. Suess but Sam’s favorite stories were always Dean’s bizarre fairytales.  In hindsight, there was always a vein of truth in the monsters and heroes Dean would lull him to sleep with.   

Sam listens now. Listens to Dean’s silver tongue spilling about girls who use their teeth when they kiss, girls who bite and scratch and like to be on top, girls who don’t neglect his balls during head and like to suck on his nipples. 

Dean’s really drunk.

There’s a moment when Sam hates himself most, when he thinks,  _ I could do it now _ .  Dean’s smiling and pliant and stinks of top shelf indulgence when he stumbles out on Sam’s arm.  It’s raining.

_ I’ll use my teeth. _

A clap of thunder explodes in the sky as Sam’s sixth breath beholds Dean transfixed in the exquisite agony of a lightning strike.

~

He never wakes feeling rested. 

He can’t remember his dreams.  He’d give anything for a dream, something more absurd than the daily spectacle of Dean’s death, more horrifying than the way Dean looks at him when he’s bleeding out. 

He used to have dreams about his teeth falling out.  He’d clamp his lips shut, clap his palms over his mouth, press his face to his knees but they’d keep coming, crumbling out bit by bit.  He’d try to scream Dean’s name but chalky dust would fall out of his mouth in rivers. 

Sam would pull one of his own teeth out to have those dreams again.

~

Dean’s in the shower and Sam is barefoot.

His toes curl into the barely-there green carpeting.  Ready to pounce, ready to spring, ready to hobble himself so he’ll never, ever unleash this thing inside him.

Dean can forget.  Sam never will.

Dean has died a dozen deaths in their bathroom.  Sam’s courage hasn’t fared much better. 

~

“I like it when they’re on top, you know?”

Dean’s half-hunched over their bar table.  His skin is booze-warm, creeping pink under the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. 

This bar has a slightly larger stuffed alligator than the one up the street.  The jukebox is shit but the bartender (Larry Kriedemaker, Doris’ high school sweetheart, two divorces and three kids, whittles in his spare time) is generous with the drinks and has only accidentally killed Dean once.

“Yeah?”

There are cultures where storytelling is the most highly valued skill.  Dean would be a king.

“It’s like you look up and all you can see is this person on top of you, like there’s nothing else.”

Dean’s eyes are glassy with liquor and fond memories.

“I love it when they take your hands, like, just pin you down.”

“Use you.”

Sam’s close enough that he can smell the Beam on Dean’s breath.  It would taste so good.

“Fuck, yeah.”

Dean focuses on something just to Sam’s right, some ghost that makes his eyes sad and his lips ape a smile.

“Can’t think about anything else when you’re like that.”

~

“Tell me to stop.”

Dean likes his showers hot.  Steam plumes around him, decorative, a picture for a locket or a Liberace dressing room. 

“Sam.”

There’s barely room for both of them.  If Sam looked down he’d see how perfect Dean looks, pinked warm and wet as he backs against the tile.  Sam’s spent a lifetime looking.

He kisses Dean the way he knows he likes, with a hand cupping around his neck and Sam’s whole body pressed against him.  Dean likes this, feeling crowded, feeling boxed in, feeling wanted. 

“Tell me to stop and I will.”

Sam doesn’t stop.  Sam works his mouth into every secret Dean’s spilled in the endless confessional of his Tuesdays.  Sucks a rose bloom onto his neck, scrapes along the shivering shell of his ear, sneaks a lifetime of heartbreak into his bite on Dean’s bottom lip.  Dean likes a little hurt with his sweetness.

“Sam.”

There’s a warmth that seeps out of Dean’s body when he bleeds.  Ninety-eight-point-six degrees is so much warmer when it’s cupped in your hands.  He melts against Dean’s chest, crowding his back against cool tile.  He’s greedy with his hands, touching Dean wherever he can, sliding their thighs together, growling when his cock brushes up against Dean’s. 

Sam Winchester keeps a ruler by his bed and every day it doesn’t quite measure up to his big brother.

~

It’s always Dean’s first time.

The first first-time, Sam’s first time, he can barely keep it together.  All his purloined knowledge of Dean’s carnal preferences, all his adolescent imaginings and wonder years, none of them prepare him for the sheer, overwhelming feeling of Dean’s dick in his hand.

He’ll work up to it later, as each successive Tuesday strips away another soul-peel of Sam’s shame.  He’ll suck Dean off the way he likes, stroke Dean rough and wet into his mouth as Dean tries to say No and forgets everything but Sam’s name.  He’ll bring Dean off slow and gentle and hard and fast and into Sam’s mouth, his hand, his heart, his ass, half his eye the first time Sam sticks a finger inside him.  He’ll get a baker’s dozen of facials and pearl necklaces and other things Dean hiccups into Sam’s borrowed Bourbon.  Sam Winchester cries his way through sex when his brother’s on top of him.

The first time, Sam wraps his hand around his brother’s dick and barely touches his own before he’s coming all over Dean’s belly. 

“Sam.”

The slow bleeds are the worst deaths to bear.  When it’s instant Dean can’t say anything.  At best he looks puzzled, at worst his face is obliterated halfway through a bad “clowns or midgets” joke.  There’s a way Dean says his name on the slow bleeds, low and needy, shock and awe and horror all in one syllable that twists Sam on the inside with its familiar novelty. 

Dean says his name when he comes.  He doesn’t say anything when he leaves Sam in the shower and barges out the door half-dressed.

It’s the only day he doesn’t watch Dean die.

~

A hundred seems like a lucky number. 

He knows it’s the same Dean every morning but this one looks different, filtered through the lens of shower steam and the taste of Dean lingering in his mouth.

Sam’s actually a little hungry this morning.  He lets Dean rib him over breakfast and steals a piece of bacon for himself. 

Maybe they can fuck today.  If they make it up the block there’s a three-to-one chance they’ll make it back to the motel room.  Maybe Dean will say more than his name when he comes. 

~

Strawberry syrup.  It’s the smallest things that undo him.

He holds Dean until he gets cold.  He never even got to eat lunch.  Somewhere between burning Dean’s body and a dozen cold burgers on his table, Sam will regret not taking one last kiss that Dean will remember.  There are so many Tuesdays he missed.  Hell isn’t living the same day over and over again. 

Hell is the day that comes after Tuesday. 


End file.
